Annick Girardin, France’s overseas territory minister, arrived in Mayotte Monday following weeks of protests across the Indian Ocean archipelago. But few believe Girardin can solve the chronic problems confronting Mayotte’s residents, reports FRANCE 24.
Rubber tyres and tree trunks block roads in these tiny Indian Ocean islands, traffic slows to a crawl and protestors have been taking to the streets over the past three weeks in the French territory of Mayotte.
Situated in the Gulf of Mozambique, between Madagascar and the coast of southeastern Africa, Mayotte has sun, sands and is ringed by a coral reef rich in marine life, all of which makes for a tropical paradise tourist destination.
But it has also turned into a destination for desperate migrants from Comoros, an archipelago nation that declared independence from France in 1975. Mayotte was the only one of the four main Comoros Islands that voted to remain part of France. In 2011, Mayotte became an overseas French department following a 2009 referendum, which made the tiny sliver of terrain into the 101st French administrative department and the first with a Muslim majority.
Mayotte’s status as a French overseas department -- and a member of the EU’s Outermost Regions -- has incited a massive influx of migrants arriving from Comoros on dilapidated kwassa-kwassa fishing boats, flooding local schools and hospitals, stretching resources, and spreading discontent across the territory.
Today, only 45 percent of Mahorans -- as the people of Mayotte are called -- were born in Mayotte. About 70 percent of babies born in the largest city of Mamoudzou were born to migrant women without immigration papers, according to a 2017 study by INSEE (Institut national de la statisque et des études économiques).
Mahorans these days say they have plenty to be upset about: violence is increasing, illegal immigration rates continue to rise, as does a pervasive sense that Paris is paying scant regard to this overseas French territory. An insensitive joke about the kwasa-kwasa by French President Emmanuel Macron that was caught on camera last year has added to the sense of disaffection.